Disclaimer: This will only be stated once. The following story is a fan work derived from the manga/anime series XxxHolic, which was originally written by CLAMP. I do not profit from this work of fan fiction. I do not own the characters who I am borrowing from XxxHolic. I do not write canon, I twist, change, and play with what is canon. Questions? No? Didn't think so...

Sun Fortune

-/ Chapter 1 \-

She had gotten distracted; she hadn't been paying attention. Himawari steps just wrong on a crack in the sidewalk and her ankle rolls out from under her. She spills sideways, arms arms flying outwards, and she lands hard against the girl next to her—she forgets—people are always following her—Kawashima, wasn't that her name?—and sucks in her breath. She immediately bows to apologize, hoping against hope that nothing will happen. But the girl dazedly stumbles into the street, and a random bicyclist slams on his brakes and barrels right into her. The girl crashes to the ground, and the wheel of the bike gets caught between her legs: both bicyclist and the bike flip in the air. The bicyclist lands on his back. Neither of them are moving.

Himawari drops the briefcase she had been holding and sinks slowly to her knees. A boy runs past her from behind, yelling 119, and rushes to the girl. Himawari crawls forward, despite herself, because she doesn't want to look, but she must look, because once again, this is something that she has done...

The boy catches her eye and stares at her, and Himawari realizes that she's not doing anything, just looking, being useless, being an outsider. The boy mouths, DO SOMETHING, and mimes speaking into a phone. Or maybe he shouted it, but Himawari can't hear. Startled, Himawari digs out her phone and dials the number with fingers that haven't yet begun to shake. The number connects and Himawari answers the questions she can. Afterwards she doesn't remember what the questions were, or exactly what she said, just the voice at the end: It's okay, help is coming. By then Himawari's hands are shaking so badly that she drops the cell phone to the pavement—it clatters; her fingers are still jerkily twitching. She watches them as if they belong to someone else. She feels so drained. It doesn't matter. She doesn't believe them, it's all over, they are both dead and there's nothing that can be done. Too much has happened for her to believe in any other outcome. It's been years since something happened quite so quickly, directly linked to her, right before her eyes like this. At least not since Watanuki fell out of the window...

That was quite a long time ago. The thought makes her feel vaguely ill.

The ambulance arrives, and they take both the corpses away.

The boy finished talking to...to the police, she thinks dully, who else would it be...and he glances her way and she can see their eyes flash at her: they're going to ask her questions.

She stands, holding her briefcase, half-sways, half pivots to the side. She doesn't want to. If she's could...but she's trembling, and too tired to bolt.

"I saw everything," the boy says loudly. "Please, she's in shock. Don't talk to her right now! I told you everything."

"But you said—"

"It was an accident," the boy said, angry. "You have no idea what she's been through! I saw it, she couldn't have prevented that!"

"With all due respect, sir, she's—"

Been at the scene of an awful lot of accidents, Himawari's mind supplies for her. It's suspicious.

"How do you know she's not just very, very unlucky?" the boy interrupts.

Hearing that, Himawari nearly falls to her knees.

"She's the one who called 119," the boy says softly. "She did it. It's not her fault."

"We can interview her later," the policeman reflects.

"Please." The boy bows.

They hand her a card. She fumbles for a pen; they give her one. She signs it distractedly, puts down her number. But before she gives it back, she glances at the boy who did this for her, and she blurts out, all in a rush, "It was my fault. I tripped over my a-ankle and fell, and she tipped in the street. I knew her but not that well. We were just classmates. I l-liked her, but I never n-noticed h-her, and now—"

"He your boyfriend?" the policeman interrupts, glancing between her and the boy.

She shakes her head. "I don't even know his name."

The boy looks pained at that admission, but he doesn't say anything. Irritated, he snaps, "She's not my girlfriend, she's in my chemistry class."

The policeman sighs. "All right. You can go on home."

"Thank you." The boy says it. Himawari starts walking, and he follows her, as he must have been doing the whole time.

"Where do you live?" says the boy. Up close, she decides, he is really uncomfortably tall. Which isn't really fair because he's only around Doumeki's height, and she never thought of Doumeki that way. Maybe it's because he's still gangly...

She almost tells him. Then she remembers her curse and decides not to. "A little ways ahead. What's your name?"

"Hisaki Muun. Meaning, 'Sun Fortune' and 'No Luck'."

"Hisaki-san. What a strange name..."

"I know. What do you think, Kunogi-san?"

"It seems contradictory," she says reluctantly. Heart fluttering, she thinks, it seems oddly...significant.

"I know, right? But it's not, actually. I think it means that wherever I walk under this sun, I have no luck but the luck I make myself, which brings me fortune. I mean, the sun has only one gift to give to everyone equally, right? Does that make sense."

Himawari has to stop and think about that one. "I see," she says finally. "Yes, it does make sense. You must have gotten teased a lot when you were young, though."

Hisaki shrugs. "Yeah, I hated my parents at first, but it's kind of become a personal philosophy."

"It's a good one," Himawari says softly, looking at the ground. She wishes she could be so carefree...

His smile is kind, and more knowing than she would like. Than she thinks he could actually be, and that scares her a little.

"I live here." Hisaki points to a house across the street. To her shock, it's not all that far away from hers. They had been in the same neighborhood for years and she had never noticed.

But she doesn't say anything to enlighten him. "See you."

"Tomorrow," he agrees, with a quick smile.

He leaves before she can protest. But protest what? It's not like he's going to intrude on her lunch sessions with Doumeki. Suddenly, she feels the loss of Watanuki keenly. She is weary. Doumeki is Doumeki, as always, but it is not the same. Nobody knows her liked Watanuki did. No one else can cheer her like he could. She has a million acquaintances, just like the Kawashima girl, but no friends. And she's tired of it all. Tired of them, tired of Doumeki, tired of Watanuki being gone. She misses the luxury of having someone to be genuinely close to.

Once he's inside his own home, she enters her house. Tampopo flies to her finger and cheeps, and she smiles, despite herself. It's not actually all that bad. She's not quite that alone.

The boy named Hisaki waits for her at school. He smiles at her from behind the gate, and steps forward to talk to her.

She feels strange. It takes a while before Himawari realizes that the reason she doesn't recognize the emotion is that it is not born of anxiety or trepidation, but from pleasure and happiness. She was...she was glad he had waited for her.

That alters her perspective a little.

Himawari squares her shoulders, and turns to him, accepting him into her space.

"Kunogi-san," Hisaki says. "Good morning."

"Good morning. You know, you can call me Himawari if you want," she says quietly.

"Himawari-chan," he repeats. "Himawari-chan, please call me Muun."

"Muun-kun." She smiles—a genuine smile; Hisaki Muun almost gapes at the sight. Himawari thinks it's cute. Watanuki used to make expressions like that. But now she also feels a little sad.

Muun is watching her. "What's going on? Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" she says in surprise, looking up.

"You lost your expression and were staring into the space over my shoulder. You looked kind of lost, or upset."

"Oh." Most people don't notice... "I had a friend who made goofy expressions like yours, once."

His brow snaps together in understanding, and then a certain softness rolls over his face. "I'm sorry," Muun says gently.

Himawari hefts her briefcase, an unconscious reminder that they really ought to be getting to class. "Don't be," she says, subdued.

"Why not?" he demands, surprising her again.

"Because..." she says vaguely, "He's still alive, and we're still friends." She begins drifting towards the classrooms.

He follows her. "Meaning he's sick, or that he moved?"

"Both, I guess," says Himawari listlessly. She doesn't feel like elaborating the lie. She glances around. The halls here are empty; all of the posters and student artwork has been taken down recently.

"Did he go to this school?"

"Yes."

"Who, then?"

"He was the boy who fell out the window," she tells him as they mount the stairs.

The air Muun breathed whistled through his teeth. "I see... I didn't know him that well. He's still recovering, then?"

"Yes." Not that he's ever going to leave the wishing shop in my lifetime, if he's serious about seeing Yuuko. Even if I hadn't been who I was, I don't think I could compete with Yuuko's hold over him.

"Did you love him?" They turn the corner.

Himawari turns pale. "No. Never." More softly still, so softly she's sure Muun can't hear her, she whispers, "We couldn't..."

"Why do you look so guilty, then?" Muun persists.

"What happened to him was my fault." Himawari shoves open the sliding door to her classroom and enters. Muun takes a step back, and Himawari lets the door slide shut.

It probably surprised him. Himawari has a reputation for being kind and patient with everyone, for never letting her own faults get in the way of others. He must be surprised by this chilly display of selfishness.

They have chemistry together. She'd forgotten. Muun immediately heads for her as a partner in the latest experiment. Himawari's covey of girl friends, the ones who compliment her and defend her and make sure no one bothers her, back away. She doesn't understand at first, but then she sees their hope for a brimming romance in their eyes. They don't want to watch, not sabotage this. Whatever "this" is. Feed for their chatter. Himawari sighs, and accepts, though it's not for their sakes.

"We've never worked together before," said Muun carefully.

"No, we haven't," Himawari agrees, thinking of her girl friends. One of them usually takes the role of her partners in everything.

"I'm happy to have this opportunity."

Himawari feels a little irritated. He doesn't have to be that nice. "You know I burn and ruin everything in chemistry. I haven't written a single lab report that doesn't mention experiment failure."

Chemistry is Doumeki's best subject. Although he's tried to tutor her before, nothing could help her terrible experiments, and eventually he gave up. There was nothing wrong with his teaching methods.

Muun shrugs. "I know, but we'll see. Let us try. Maybe with me, it will be different."

"All right." She deliberately acquiesces too easily. He knows she doesn't believe him.

Still Muun grins, as if he's happy that he has to prove his capability to her.

They work through the experiment. To Himawari's surprise, nothing in particular goes wrong, and the one thing she made a mistake with, Muun compensated for. Himawari feels a bit relieved that she won't have to write about the mistakes in her lab report. It's a lot of extra work.

"You see, it's all Hana-san's fault." Muun nodded to one of Himawari's covey, a girl with the color of honey. "When she's on your right, she organizes things wrong and you get confused and pick up the wrong ingredient or measurement or whatever. When she's on your left, she often reads the instructions wrong from over your shoulder. She's always tripping you up, and you never notice because you're expecting to fail. She really does like you, she's not trying to set you up or anything. Rather, she's trying too hard."

"How do you know?"

"Observation."

"Really."

"Yes."

"What if my bad luck simply interferes with the experiment?"

Muun shakes his head. "It's not bad luck. It's bad organization and half-hearted teamwork and bad timing."

"What about the times Hana-san doesn't work with me, then?"

Muun grin turns crooked. "Can't explain that. But it accounts for half of your failures." Then his smile fades. "I can't figure it out for the rest of them."

"Huh..." Himawari says distractedly.

"The reason why it went well when you worked with me is that it's probably just Murphy's law," says Muun. "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. But if you prepare enough, you can prevent things from going wrong in the first place. You and Hana-san expect things to go wrong, but you only react to the things that happen to you."

"Oh," says Himawari in a small voice, drawn up short.

"I told you, I make my own luck," Muun says proudly.

"But what if I don't?" says Himawari. "What if my luck is an indelible part of me?"

Muun could have dismissed her words as joking, but instead he takes her seriously. "Maybe you can learn to turn it."

Himawari shakes her head. To her, Muun's argument only proves that he is able to defeat her luck. Which doesn't necessarily mean she can change it at all by herself.

But maybe, just maybe, she tells herself, it wouldn't hurt to try.

Author's Note: It's a fact that Himawari marries. But whoever she marries, from the standpoint of the story, he has no name, no face, no personality, and no explanation as to why it is possible for him to be with Himawari when it ought to be impossible. Which wasn't enough for me. So everything here is totally made up. As usual, I invented Hisaki Muun's name by mashing kanji with interesting meanings together. If it doesn't make sense, and I made a mistake, I'm sorry; it's supposed to be significant. If there was a better or more accurate way to do it, I would. So, here's his name in kanji: 日幸 無運

This story's not over yet. Do tell me what you think... This story is likely to see strenuous revision in the near future, so if you'd like a say in that, go to it.